Going going . . .gone?!

(column by Shashank Shekhar & Rohan Sachdev)

Exasperated with greenhouse emissions beyond human control, scientists prescribe another 15 - 25 years before we face drastic shifts in climate patterns. Resources have been exploited to the ‘t’ while alternatives are still at nascent stages. Under such circumstances, some areas pose a major threat to our future. Here’s a rundown on the most potent of all. . .

Fish n’ chips, a legend!
Man’s greed has forever got the better of him, so it’s hardly astounding that despite knowing awfully well the after effects of hurting perhaps the most imperative of all creatures summing the aquatic food-systems, in those gigantic killer-trawlers, they went ahead and killed fishes by the millions of tonnes. With such over-fishing affecting the marine food web with dwindling numbers of turtles, sharks, seabirds and other predators because we take away their source of food – fish! Besides, commercial fishing is also to blame for needlessly eliminating thousands of dolphins, whales, sea turtles and other animals every year on account of their getting trapped in the trawler nets! To add salt to injury, these killer-trawlers have begun to penetrate deeper waters affecting even the deep-sea ecosystems.

Making matters worse are the world’s governments that are actually promoting this mindless plunder. Subsidies to fisheries are pegged at $30-$34 billion annually – approximately 25% of world fishing revenue! Nearly $20 billion are "harmful" subsidies promoting intensified fishing by providing support for boat construction and modernisation, fishing equipment, fuel and other operational costs!

Due to such apathy on our side, 70% of the world's marine fish stocks are fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted. Today, 1/3rd of all fishing stocks worldwide have reduced to 10% of their normal levels, affecting the marine ecosystems and fishermen alike. If not curbed now, such brazen acts, threaten to damage, the aquatic ecosystems beyond repair. To miss out on fish n’ chips or a ‘prawn masala’, the choice is in our hands.

Amazon Gone!!
Ever thought of world temperatures rising 6-7 degrees! Well, it almost seems imminent, given the Amazons continuous depletion at the current rate. Encompassing 9 nations and accounting for more than half of earth’s remaining rainforests, situated in South America, the Amazons have a big say in the ecosystem of the entire planet, providing 1/5th of the world’s oxygen supply. Shockingly, it has been observed that between 1991 and 2000, an area twice the size of Portugal was cleared in the Amazon. In 2003 and 2004 alone, an area the size of Wales was cut down, all so that soy plantations can come up. Why soy? Soy exports to Uncle Sam’s country for manufacturers of ice cream, margarines, mayonnaise, and lipsticks bring in much revered US dollars. A classic case of ‘feeding the economy’ versus ‘conserving natural habitat’, the winner gets to decide our future!

The jungles of the Amazon, on the other hand are governed by laws of its own. Criminal factions doubling as land grabbers coupled with government corruption and backed by large corporations (mostly American), see a great potential in bringing down forests and using the land thus obtained, to serve their purposes. Those reporting abuse of the forest to government agencies oft en face violent harassment for taking on the land mafia, backed by the large corporations.

The forest is a giver. Besides providing us with vital elements necessary for life, it provided shelter to millions who do not speak like us and are clueless of happenings outside the mighty greens. Save the forests, save lives.

Mercury Rising
Nature’s fury upon man-made habitat is oft en unleashed in the most unforgiving and bewildering attacks that for generations is revered, finally amalgamating into bed-time fables with real disaster and anecdotes of the past. But for man, the most prodigal of all inhabitants, there remain a few assaults that, like creepy wines, spread their tentacles through the shadows and eventually replicate those giant ‘natural’ killers, colossal and resolute.

If one were to categorise the affects of rising mercury levels in our rivers, oceans and other water bodies, perhaps it’s the latter category that holds most disaster in the near future than sporadic onslaughts. Hydrargyrum (Hg), known to common folks as mercury, can spell disaster especially as methyl mercury which accumulates in sea water fish. Arising mostly out of industrial emissions, especially from burning coal fumes, mercury particles either conjoin with rain and snow to find way onto land towards water bodies or are ejected directly into deep waters by industrial houses. Into blue waters, they assume form of highly toxic methyl mercury which builds up into tissues of fishes and animals in high concentrations posing great health risk to regular consumers of contaminated fish.

If exposed to developing foetuses, babies and children, mercury poisoning directly affects the nervous system, resulting in brain damage and learning disabilities. Agrees Classy D’Silva, a leading scientist at National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa. But according to her, mercury emissions in the past few years have actually gone down due to the central pollution board tightening its noose around polluting industrial units.

An effort is worth applause, save the dampener in the form of excessive mercury levels in groundwater sources discovered near the former Union Carbide factory in Bhopal in 2002.

Death without a cause
The world’s greatest rivers are dying. The very rivers that withstood innumerable centuries and civilisations. As integral as elements most basic to human existence, these rivers are fundamental to balancing the aquatic ecosystems of the planet lest we choose to relinquish our very own lives. Though the globe that appears mostly blue, leaving aside salty oceans, it is these fresh water ecosystems that clean and store water vital to human and wildlife existence alike. With a huge spurt in human population at the turn of the last millennium, there have been excessive pressures on natural fresh water ecosystems leaving more than a billion without access to clean and safe drinking water. Perhaps a prequel to the water wars of the future.

But the ones that suffer most from man’s erratic misadventures are local wildlife species, both above and underwater, that find it difficult to survive either altered river flows or artificial blockages in form of dams and canals. Like the Colorado River in the United States that suffers an absolute change in its flow pattern, thanks to the many dams constructed on it affecting local temperatures and endangering many fish varieties that had evolved in the swift -flowing, silt-laden water.

The Ganga, considered the holiest by Indians, a river on whose loamy banks lives one in every twelve of the human species, figures amongst the top ten dying rivers due to mindless water extraction and pollution. However it is China’s Yangtze River and its tributaries that face a major threat with over 600 kilometres of the river in critical conditions. “The river's annual harvest of aquatic products dropped from 427,000 tonnes in 1950s to about 100,000 tonnes in 1990s,” reports China Daily, China’s leading English newspaper.

An afterthought
“Our nature is obscured by work done by the compulsion of want or fear. The Mother reveals herself in the service of her children, so our true freedom is not the freedom from action but freedom in action, which can only be attained in the work of love.” Alas, it’s the children themselves and their immoderate wants that pose the biggest obstacle in the harmonious existence between man and the Mother herself.

(End of Shashank Shekhar & Rohan Sachdev column)

Wasted by toxics

“Do you think if you got no uterus and no breasts, you are still technically a woman?” asked one of the several crestfallen victims of toxic effluents released by the factories in their town Hinkley, California in the movie inspired by the life of Erin Brockovich. Human life is as much vulnerable to the acute consequences of toxic wastes as Nature. The ordeal of sunken eyes, a bleeding nose, chest congestion, grave respiratory problems, liver failure and skin cancer to irreparable neural damage to many more this-can’t–happen-to-me diseases won’t end unless steps are taken to ensure that these virulent wastes are disposed off appropriately or even better, not produced unnecessarily.

Pesticides: Repel the repellents
Praise the performance of the biologically active chemicals, pesticides in helping get rid of pests, and at once stick out the hazards and risks involved in their usage and exposure.

Prolonged exposure to these compounds can cause anything from irritation in the skin and eyes to muscle twitching, dizziness, vomiting, headache, diarrhoea to disruption of the nervous system, depending upon the route of entry – dermal, oral, or by inhalation of the chemical.

An obnoxious stand by most viewpoints, at this juncture of the 21st century, would be to advocate a complete ban on the use of pesticides. But instead, more rational fixes are the need of the hour. An instance of a similar approach could be to not opt for the chemical solution as a first option, rather go for alternative methods of control. And in places where such a choice is not available, opting for safe usage and handling of the baneful boon is paramount. Disposing off the pesticide as per the directions on the packaging is crucial. While disposing it off in water is illegal, it might actually not be fit for throwing in the bin either. May 2007 is 100th birth anniversary of Rachel Carlson, who was a pioneer in bringing about awareness about the toxic effects of the misuse of pesticides through her book Silent Spring. It was a result of the spark ignited by her that the general use of DDT was banned three decades ago in the US.

Asbestos: The breath of death
Long after a lot of harm had been done by this group of minerals with magnesium silicate fibres called asbestos, did medical practitioners realise that working around this mineral and inhalation of its fibres can cause acute diseases and disorders. These invisible fibres are airborne and low levels of it are present in the environment all the time. A press release by World Health Organization (WHO) in late April 2007 estimates that around 90,000 persons die annually because of asbestos. Shockingly, the impact of asbestos inhaled now, shows up years later.

The Supreme Court of India is contemplating dismantling the Blue Lady’ – a Norwegian ship that contains a large amount of asbestos in a ship-breaking yard in Bhavnagar, Gujarat. The court has been facing pressure from the villagers and the environmentalists, who contend that such an act of toxic disposal will impact the 12 villages located near the yard, leading to wide scale suffering and serious hazardous consequences. This fear isn’t fictional. Asbestos can cause breathing problems, fatigue, heart problems in extreme situations, but the most common symptom is constant coughing for which there isn’t a permanent cure. Industrial waste: effluents of affluence Posing a threat to the health of the world at large, these discarded solid or liquid substances possess carcinogenic compounds. Several chemical disasters of the likes of Union Carbide plant and IPCL’s gas cracker complex have caused severe, irreparable damage to the residents around them.

Third World countries for their economic development have, at several instances, jeopardised the environment. At one such instance, Philippines signed an economic cooperation treaty with Japan even when it involved damaging its environment by making it the dumping ground for its industrial wastes.

Hazardous waste is even more prone to catching fire or explosions. Businesses are responsible and bound by law for the treatment of waste before its disposal. But a lot of waste is emitted via the household route too, through automotive products, such as gasoline, batteries, oil-based paints, pesticides and other garden products and household cleaning products. Several cities around the world such as Copenhagen, Denmark have initiated the development and implementation of projects for reducing waste and oft en reusing it. The plan involves carving out strategies for reducing waste, generating power, or nourishing plants.

Plastics: Gagged by the bag
A petroleum product that has lethal effect on the environment and the entire human race has gained popularity owing to its high tensile strength and its low cost. This synthetic substance is perhaps one of man’s worst inventions due to its non biodegradable nature, which makes its disposal an even tougher task. Be it emission of toxic fumes while disposing it off by burning or be it the soil in the land-fills or the water in the oceans, all get contaminated when it decomposes to its natural form. From poles to tropics, from grasslands to deserts and from lakes to oceans, all have remains of this trash in their belt, tossed into them by humans.

The war on plastics has begun to a large extent but there is a long way to go before it makes a dent. Plastic recycling programmes are a common feature in the US and India’s attempt to spread awareness on waste management where Jadavpur University and Paschim Bangal Vigyaan Mancha in Kolkata have come up with a dry waste recycling process is commendable too. This endeavour involves door-to-door collection of dry waste including plastic, metal and e-waste. World Environment Day on June 5 has been aptly selected by the authorities to launch the programme.

Imagine the dead trap of plastics. All the plastic that has been produced till date is still there and as it decomposes, it releases huge amounts of toxic effluents into the air. Progress for sure has been made since the plastic containers and grocery bags have been made with 40% lighter plastics. Still, the pace isn’t fast enough...